Transcript of the interview with Bart Bunting

IT Graduate

Bart Bunting recently graduated from a degree in computer science. He now works as a project coordinator for a satellite communications company. Bart speaks about his job search experience and gives advice about settling in to the workplace as a person with a disability.

Bart: My name is Bart Bunting, I recently finished a degree with the faculty of Information Technology I am currently working as a project manager for Ursys which is a company specialising in satellite communications.

You have graduated fairly recently, what were your key challenges in looking for work and how did you overcome these?

Bart: Well I actually have had this job for quite a few years now but going back to when I was looking for work, challenges are really to, as somebody who is blind, was to convince the employer that you can actually do the work that is required and also to over come obstacles along the same lines of how do you do this and how will you be able to do that. What things you can do and what you can't do and I find that there is always going to be some things that yes I can't do, but it's easier enough if you can do some other things well to sort of to swap those with other people. I am not very good at reading diagrams but I am pretty good if someone explains it to hold it in my head, so it's just a case of I guess fitting in where you fit in well.

What stage did you decide disclose your disability to the employer? Was it in your application or was it later on during the interview?

Bart: Pretty sure it was during the interview, it's a tough one to make a call on how you should approach it. In some cases it is advantageous to disclose your disability if it's maybe a large organisation, they have fair employment policies. Smaller organisations are perhaps a bit more risky, its easier for the employer to throw the resume away or just say no thanks than it is to say no thanks if you get a chance to sell your self if you are actually there but again they might be like what's going on here so it is a challenge and I guess you need to approach it both for the individual and for the situation.

So how did your employers respond to a disability, what was the initial reaction?

Bart: They were fairly ok with it, I think it was a bit surprising but they have been fantastic here just always making accommodation, reasonable accommodations and I didn't have an issue really.

You said earlier that you would just to be prepared to answer those questions about your disability, emphasising what you could do?

Bart: I guess that I felt that I could do and understood what the things I could and couldn't do, obviously because I have been working with computers for a while and I guess was just able to articulate that 'yes I can access this', or 'no I can't access that'. I think it's saying I am going to need to have this. There is assistance for people with disabilities to get workplace modifications through various schemes. I remember when I first started I needed a screen reader so I was like ?Right to access the computer I need a screen reader, but to do that we can get funding from these people and that's the only real modification that I need,? so it was just the case of being aware.

So now that you have been working for a while how does the disability impact you when you are at work?

Bart: There is things that I can do they are really a pain to do, there is things that I just can't do and need assistance with so I think a key thing is as well, (something to do with having a disability in general but applies in the work place) is that you need to know when to say ?No, that's not worth me doing?. There is things that I can do that will take me ten times longer to do than somebody who can see so if its going to take me ten minutes and its going to take some body else one minute its just not worth doing. There is no point just doing it to demonstrate your independence you just go to do what makes sense and at the end of the day the business is about making money and being efficient. You might come up with a compromise and say ?I need help with doing that, but I can help you with this,? and rather then you sort of plugging away that's something stupid to be doing in the first place. You would have better efficiency.

What do you think other students with disabilities could have done when they were at UTS to improve their career options?

Bart: Just be very educated in your own disability and what you can do to make adaptation, just being aware.

Do you have any further advice to current UTS students or soon to be graduates with a disability?

Bart: I think it's a very scary thing to do I mean it's you going up there to get a job which is scary enough for any body who has just graduated from uni, but you are doing it with the extra difficulty of having a disability and having to represent yourself and sell yourself to the employer. So if you get knocked back a couple of times don't take it to heart too much, because at the end of the day lots of people do. It's not necessarily going to be the easiest thing you have ever done but there is no reason that you can't do it.